There is an urgent need for the development of rapid and convenient methods for detection and identification of bacterial pathogens in clinical specimens to guide diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases. Antibiotic therapy is based on identification of the pathogen and its antibiotic sensitivity. Treatment should not be delayed due to the seriousness of the disease, and thus is often started before this information is available. The effectiveness of individual antibiotics varies with the resistance of the bacterial pathogen to the antibiotic. Therapeutic outcomes can be significantly improved by the availability of a rapid assay for antibiotic susceptibility.
There remains an urgent need for the development of rapid and convenient methods for detection and testing of antibiotic susceptibility. The present invention addresses this need and others, as described below.